From Potrero to Zero

My first visit to the farm today for a month. I returned from the Pacific coast of Costa Rica on Friday and am still trying to adjust to a temperature drop of 50F+! I was still wearing my glasses with the photo-chromatic lenses, hardly ideal for birding in sunlight. The brand-name is Reactions, but I think Over-reactions would be more appropriate.

I see that a couple of new species have been added to the reserve bird-list in my absence: Common Gull (long overdue) and Mediterranean Gull (which we expected sooner or later). The total is now 157. Today all the pools were frozen, which doesn't happen too often on the Lizard. A flock of 140 Golden Plover were feeding out on the pasture but there wasn't much else around. It's a real shame that we have no crops to feed the finches this winter, especially if we're in for a hard time. Our usual arable contractor having retired, we were let down by another farmer who failed to keep his promises.
In the absence of any new photos from the farm, I'm posting a few I took in warmer climes!

Scrape and polish

When we acquired the farm over eight years ago, the only water-body was Ruan Pool, which in those days was only a fraction of its original size due to steadily invading vegetation. We decided to create a small scrape to attract a few wildfowl and waders. It was dug in late 2002 in a boggy area at the bottom of a very gentle slope at the edge of the pasture.

To prove that you can create something from nothing, it regularly attracted duck during the winter (six species) and, if water levels were suitable, a nice variety of spring and autumn waders. The Cornwall Wildlife Trust reserves team built a rather imposing tower-hide to overlook it. Highlights have included Little Egret, Pink-footed Geese, Garganey, Little Ringed Plover, Black-tailed Godwit, Little Stint, Pectoral Sandpiper, Jack Snipe, Water Pipit and, best of all, a Citrine Wagtail, which was present for 35 minutes on the morning of 16th May 2004 (marvel at the quality of my video clip). Reed, Sedge and Grasshopper Warblers and Reed Buntings breed in the phragmites. I've also seen Marsh, Hen and Montagu's Harriers hunting over it - and a very possible Pallid!

Of course, nothing lasts for ever and over the last two or three years nature has been steadily working to return the land to its former condition. Recent visitors carefully entering the hide have probably been quite perplexed (and disappointed) to find themselves looking at a lot of rush and reedmace, very little water, and no birds. Hence this week our expert contractor Andy Tylor has been on site and......we have a scrape again!

A painful lesson is learnt!

I'm on my way down to the farm this morning and Dougy, who seems to have a problem sleeping and is already there, is on the phone to tell me there's a Little Stint and three Dunlin on the pool variously known as the Plantlife pond (as Plantlife funded it), the dead pool (because for the first couple of years its existence it seemed devoid of any form of life) and I Can't Believe It's Not Walmsley, this last one being a sarcastic reference to the fact that every now and then it does attract a wader or two.

So I amble across the field and there's the man himself, standing behind his Velbon monopod and Nikon 'scope looking very pleased with himself. After all, this is only the third Little Stint ever to be seen on the reserve. It's a typical juvenile, dashing about all over the place, loosely accompanied by two of the Dunlin which are trying to keep up with it.

"The other one's over there - it's been half hidden behind the rushes" says Dougy. He hasn't had a proper look at it yet as he's been enjoying good views of the stint.

I point my bins across the pool at the precise point that the fourth wader emerges on to the open mud. I suggest to Dougy that he might like to take a closer look. Although he makes an admirable attempt to appear unfazed, I can tell he is shattered as he realises that it is in fact a Pectoral Sandpiper!


I'd like to point out that Dougy, never one to let pride spoil a good story, insisted I tell it like it was. He has now learnt his lesson, i.e. grill everything properly before anyone else arrives....

All the waders suddenly took off and flew toward the airfield, but we later relocated the Pectoral on Ruan Pool, where we got great views from the old hide. It was unusually flighty, even being spooked by a passing Jackdaw, which then chased it round in circles before allowing it to re-settle.

This is the third record for the farm - it's as regular here as Little Stint!

Hybridising hirundines?

Nothing too out of the ordinary to report lately. A juvenile Marsh Harrier was found standing in the shallows (thoughts of the Rolling Stones there...) of one of the dragonfly ponds on 3^rd. We've had a few waders through: Ringed Plover, Greenshank, Ruff, Whimbrel, Curlew, Dunlin, Green Sandpipers. One of the Curlew had a horribly damaged leg, bending 180° backwards from the knee. The Whimbrel was hobbling a bit too. There's been an average passage of Wheatears, Whinchats, Spotted Flycatchers and Yellow Wagtails. A Wryneck failed to make it on to the farm by a matter of feet last weekend.


And so the rarest bird to pay us a visit this autumn dropped by this morning as I was standing by the Plantlife pond. A bunch of about 15 Swallows came down and skimmed the surface. Amongst them, flying away from me, was one with a big white rump patch. It was not a House Martin. Red-rumped Swallow flashed through my mind for about a nano-second, because as it turned, it was just a Swallow. In every respect except that rump, it looked like a bog-standard young Barn Swallow.

Off they went, gaining height and moving south, leaving me scratching my head and wondering if it was just an aberrantly plumaged Swallow or a hybrid x House Martin. I think the fact that the white patch was regularly-shaped and clearly defined makes the latter the more likely.

More angst for arachnophobes

Although Ruan Pool is pretty well dry, some of the our other pools look suitable enough for waders, yet they're in distinctly short supply so far this autumn. Stithians Reservoir is having a sandpiper-fest, so I can only presume that Simon, the warden up there, is playing dirty and has set up some kind of feeding station for waders. Well Simon, we have a secret weapon that will be kicking in soon and I am strongly tipping Windmill to turn up an American or two before September is out.

So this morning our thoughts turned to butterflies, dragonflies, moths - and spiders again, especially as the overnight mist had left thousands of webs glistening in the sunshine. We found a number of large orb webs very similar to that spun by our resident Wasp Spider (see posts below), but the inhabitants, although quite large and colourful, didn't have quite the same impact as the stunningly scary Argiope bruennichi.

We took a number of photos and were later able to i.d. them as two common species of Araneus, namely quadratus (above) and diadematus (below). Thanks to Dougy Wright for the top left and bottom right photos and supplying his shorts for the backdrop to that at top right.